Inequality, Polarization and Poverty: Advances in Distributional Analysis (Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion and Well-Being Book 6)

The study of inequality, polarization and poverty is crucial for understanding the economic well-being of the population of a country. Conceptual and methodological advances and better data have provided better insights into these issues in recent years, and it is the objective of the book to present a systematic and up-to-date treatment of the developments in the subject. Both welfare theoretic and descriptive approaches are discussed and, since the wellbeing of a population depends on income and non-income indicators, both unidimensional and multidimensional frameworks are taken into consideration. The technical terms and mathematical operations employed to analyze the results are explained intuitively in non-technical terms, and numerical analyses and graphical representations help to illustrate important concepts. Cover 1 Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion and Well-Being 3 Inequality, Polarization and Poverty: Advances in Distributional Analysis 4 Copyright 5 9780387792521 5 Preface 8 Contents 10 1 The Measurement of Income Inequality 12 1.1 Introduction 12 1.2 Preliminaries 13 1.3 Welfare Evaluation of Income Distributions 15 1.4 Stochastic Dominance 23 1.5 Postulates for an Index of Inequality 26 1.6 Relative Inequality and Welfare 33 1.6.1 The Dalton Approach 33 1.6.2 The Atkinson Approach 34 1.6.3 The Atkinson-Kolm-Sen and the Shorrocks Approaches 35 1.7 Relative Inequality as an Ordinal Concept 43 1.8 Absolute Inequality and Welfare 44 1.8.1 The Kolm Approach 44 1.8.2 The Blackorby-Donaldson-Kolm Approach 45 1.9 Decomposable Indices of Inequality 47 1.10 Measurement of Inequality When Needs Differ 53 2 Inequality and Income Poverty 58 2.1 Introduction 58 2.2 Axioms for an Index of Income Poverty 60 2.3 Poverty Indices 68 2.3.1 The Classical Indices 68 2.3.2 The Sen Index 69 2.3.3 Some Alternatives and Variants of the Sen Index 70 2.3.4 Subgroup Decomposable Poverty Indices 75 2.3.5 Absolute Indices of Poverty 78 2.4 Population Growth and Poverty 79 2.5 Poverty Orderings 82 2.6 Unit Consistent Poverty Indices 88 2.7 Measuring Chronic Poverty 90 3 Measuring Income Deprivation 96 3.1 Introduction 96 3.2 Deprivation and Satisfaction 98 3.3 Absolute and Relative Income Differentials and Deprivation 110 3.4 Complaints and Deprivation 112 4 The Measurement of Income Polarization 116 4.1 Introduction 116 4.2 Polarization: Two Views, Axioms and Indices 117 4.3 A New Compromise Bipolarization Index, its Properties, and Characterization 126 4.4 Bipolarization Dominance 128 5 The Measurement of Multidimensional Inequality 134 5.1 Introduction 134 5.2 Postulates for an Index of Multidimensional Inequality 135 5.3 Normative Multidimensional Inequality Indices 137 5.4 Multidimensional Generalized Entropy Indices of Inequality 142 5.5 Correlation Increasing Switch and Multidimensional Inequality 143 5.6 Multidimensional Inequality and the Measurement of Occupational Segregation 146 6 The Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty 150 6.1 Introduction 150 6.2 Postulates for an Index of Multidimensional Poverty 151 6.3 Indices of Multidimensional Poverty 154 6.4 Multidimensional Poverty Orderings 160 Extended Bibliography 162 Glossary of Notation 182 Index 184 9780387792521 This book provides a synthesis of some recent issues and an up-to-date treatment of some of the major important issues in distributional analysis that I have covered in my previous book Ethical Social Index Numbers, which was widely accepted by students, teachers, researchers and practitioners in the area. Wide coverage of on-going and advanced topics and their analytical, articulate and authoritative p- sentation make the book theoretically and methodologically quite contemporary and inclusive, and highly responsive to the practical problems of recent concern. Since many countries of the world are still characterized by high levels of income inequality, Chap. 1 analyzes the problems of income inequality measurement in detail. Poverty alleviation is an overriding goal of development and social policy. To formulate antipoverty policies, research on poverty has mostly focused on inco- based indices. In view of this, a substantive analysis of income-based poverty has been presented in Chap. 2. The subject of Chap. 3 is people's perception about income inequality in terms of deprivation. Since polarization is of current concern to analysts and social decisi- makers, a discussion on polarization is presented in Chap. 4. "The study of inequality, polarization and poverty is crucial for understanding the economic well-being of the population of a country. Conceptual and methodological advances and better data have provided better insights into these issues in recent years, and it is the objective of the book to present a systematic and up-to-date treatment of the developments in the subject. Both welfare theoretic and descriptive approaches are discussed and, since the wellbeing of a population depends on income and non-income indicators, both unidimensional and multidimensional frameworks are taken into consideration. The technical terms and mathematical operations employed to analyze the results are explained intuitively in non-technical terms, and numerical analyses and graphical representations help to illustrate important concepts."--BOOK JACKET Front Matter....Pages i-x The Measurement of Income Inequality....Pages 1-46 Inequality and Income Poverty....Pages 47-83 Measuring Income Deprivation....Pages 85-104 The Measurement of Income Polarization....Pages 105-122 The Measurement of Multidimensional Inequality....Pages 123-137 The Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty....Pages 139-150 Back Matter....Pages 151-178